Hey middle class. They've got your back

We heard a lot about the middle class this election.

Seems everyone was on our side.

They were going to protect us from the government, the IRS, the EPA, global warming, bad rap music and of course, their opponents, who were definitely going to raise our taxes.

I'll just add in cable TV as another threat to the middle class. There's really a hit when they change the stations without asking you, charge you more and take away high definition Vikings games.Now that really hurts. It's all in the name of competition.

That's strange. Last time I checked, the consumer usually benefits when competition increases.

Well, the election is over and I haven't heard much talk about the middle class, at least not as much as I used to.

That's odd, because, best I can tell, all the threats are still in existence -- the EPA,IRS, the government, the ice is still melting in the Arctic and there's still no high def Vikings.

Aside from the Vikings high-definition cable oppression mentioned a few times earlier, my reading shows me there are several threats to the middle class still in existence.

The fiscal cliff, for example. It's so important it's getting very close to being capitalized like a formal name similar to the Great Depression and the Teapot Dome Scandal.

It's so important, it's on Congress' waiting list.

Republicans and Democrats are vowing to fix the Fiscal Cliff (might as well be a trendsetter here on the capitalization) and they might even get to it before Christmas. That would be a fine "reverse" Christmas present of which Charles Dickens would be proud: Our gift is that they "won't" raise our taxes.

That means we get nothing for Christmas, worse than a lump of coal.

I guess we better take what we can get.

There are other threats. A report in the Wall Street Journal this week suggested that the Federal Housing Administration  will run out of reserves because of all the bad mortgages it has and may likely need a bailout like FANNIE and FREDDIE (words that are so important they get all caps).

FANNIE and FREDDIE still owe us $140 billion.

I'll take my share if they just fix my cable and give me back the high definition Vikings game.

The politics and economics of Bruce Springsteen

People smarter than me will be better at explaining why the legendary Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have achieved their success over nearly 40 years of making music, producing albums and perfecting the genre of the live rock and roll show.

I cannot easily describe their success in words, but I know it when I see it and feel it.

That opportunity came Monday evening at the Xcel Center in St. Paul. It was the third time I had seen Springsteen and his band perform, the last time being 2002, right after his album "The Rising" had come out and when 911 was still fresh on America's consciousness.

The easy analysis: This may possibly be the best E Street Band there has ever been. Springsteen has added a handful of horn players, backup singers, and extra percussion, and oh yeah, a rockin' violinist.

He orchestrates these 17 musicians to make blue-collar, grind-it-out, on-the-road music and lyrics sound like a symphony  - a rock symphony.

A full three hour show produces not one piece of evidence that Springsteen or any of the band is going less than full throttle. The fans wear out before this band does.

 Their current "Wrecking Ball" tour is getting rave reviews.

But in the end, Spring understands "customers" as he referred to them Monday night. He asked how many people in the audience were there the night before. Thousands of hands went up. "That's great," he says, "we like repeat customers and we've got a different show for you every night."

The other piece of the easy analysis is that Springsteen knows how to connect with those "customers" in a genuine, emotional kind of way. Maybe it's just his knack for writing really good songs that can conjure up an image, a memory or one of life's truths that just resonate with everyone who has a sense of what America is about.

And if we paid attention at all in school or listening to records of all the great American musicians, we all should have some clue about that.

Some don't like Springsteen's politics. I heard former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty - a big Springsteen fan - once say he was disappointed when Springsteen came out for John Kerry and other Democrats in the 2004 election. He made campaign appearances for Obama this year.

For a guy who writes so many songs from the gut and the heart, it would be hard to avoid giving his opinion once in a while on the direction he thinks our leaders are going on this whole American story.

I, for one, will be listening.

Election analyses make leaps of logic

By now, you've probably read through myriad election analyses that mostly attempt to guess the motivation of voters without every really asking them.

Ah, the life of a pundit.

Some, of course, have numbers associated with them and start out as solid pieces of research but then often venture into guessing games.

The analysis, for example, that Obama won 70 percent of the Latino vote and that helped push him over the top is pretty spot on. The numbers can be shown to reveal that. But why Latinos voted for Obama may be a little less certain.

Some of it makes sense. Romney had to start so far right in the primaries on immigration that he couldn't recover to a moderate position even after that. Several national columnists have made that case. At the same time Obama offered the reduction in immigration enforcement plan a few months before the election that also may have looked good to Latino voters.

The biggest stretches in election analysis usually come from winners of elections who claim a "mandate" from the voters are based on just about anything they've ever said in their political careers.

These winners assume a variety of crazy things that would drive your average empiricist over the edge of their regression equation.

Just two years ago, Minnesota Republicans claimed all kinds of mandates from the voters -- one being their win was a mandate to not raise taxes. So how can one explain that they didn't raise taxes and they still lost. The voters must have pulled back their no-tax mandate.

In reality, voters cast their ballot for any number of wide ranging reasons, some, maybe many, may have very little to do with any policy. Maybe they just don't like how one party talked, or that one politician seemed too arrogant.

Democrats who defeated Republicans would do well not to draw any similar mandates -- for example, that voters cast their ballots because they wanted taxes raised on the wealthy.

Voting motivation can be much more complicated or much more simple than political leaders may think.

The most accurate conclusion on cause and effect in voting: You will never be able to prove one.

Election Day news coverage changes

We've implemented a few changes for our Election Day news coverage, many for the better.

In the past, we've spent a good deal of staff time sitting at courthouses waiting for results or more recently sitting at our computers waiting for online results to be available.

This year we will again be giving you real-time results as they come in but also providing you with links to check on the results yourself in a user-friendly way.

We've set up 33 links to local election results through the secretary of state's website. Simply go to our website and follow the links to the results for the Legislature, federal offices, schools, cities, counties and the hotly contested constitutional amendments.

We'll also be using instant news messaging through Twitter on our website to provide the latest results and hopefully get you the final results before you go to bed, depending on what time you go to bed, of course.

Most of us in The Free Press newsroom will be here to 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. and we have staff coming in at 5 a.m. Wednesday to catch you up on all the latest if need be.

Two or three of our reporters and a photographer will be providing live coverage from the campaigns, again through the Twitter feed on our website. It's at twitter.com/mankatonews.

The Secretary of State's Office tells us they will update their site every 15 minutes and experience tells us that sometimes it's even more frequent. We of course, will rely on county websites as backups to the Secretary of State.

If, by chance the state's system gets slow and experiences glitches, we will be ready to revert to our backup sites.

Officials from the SOS office told me they've upgraded their system this year and have backups in place. From the media review I was able to take of the site, it looks much easier to track election results this year than in years past.

For example, on school levy questions, you don't have to jump around to each county a school district might be in. You can simply get all the results under that question.

And with any luck, we'll get that good ol' print edition out with most, if not all, of the results. We push our press start back about two hours on election night, holding the presses until the last minute to bring you all the lastest results.

Why we don't comment on crime stories

Crime stories can be the most controversial and some say most intriguing of all the stories we publish.

Readers will often wonder why we don't take a stand on some of the cases on our opinion pages and even more importantly, why we don't generally allow online comments or letters to the editor on pending criminal cases.

The main reason: We're trying to balance the people's right to know and the people's right to free speech with the fair trial rights of the accused.

The question has been raised again by many readers given the high profile nature of Minnesota State University football coach Todd Hoffner's case involving charges of child pornography.

Our competitors in Minneapolis at the Star Tribune have ventured into the waters of commentary on the case. Columnist Gail Rosenblum wrote an column on the case the same Sunday Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes explained the newspaper's reporting of the case.

A few weeks later, the Star Tribune took the unusual step of publishing on its opinion pages an editorial essentially holding the Blue Earth County Attorney's Office feet to the fire to justify their handling of charges. The editorial challenged the county attorneys office to provide more definitive information that justify the continuation of the charges.

Blue Earth County Attorney Ross Arneson responded by deferring comment, saying the county attorneys office was not going to try the case in the newspaper.

Certainly, the case has people talking. Some question the validity of the charges. We're withholding judgment mainly because we'd like to see the justice system run its course. We'd like to understand the case and the law more fully.

It's always dangerous venturing an opinion on the case without knowledge of all the facts. We don't have access to interviews that may have been conducted. We haven't even been able to see the tapes in question.

Laws prevent public disclosure of much evidence before it is submitted at trial. There's always more to the story when you see the entire case file. Unfortunately, that usually isn't public available until the case goes to trial or is settled.

We certainly don't agree with everything the Blue Earth County attorneys office does. We've even challenged it in at least two or three formal legal battles. But we've generally waited for criminal trials to play out, unless we feel there is some egregious violation of a public records law.

We've also rejected letters to the editor on the case and generally most online comments for the same reasons we defer.

And while there is sometimes not much public sympathy for those accused of crime, our laws require a fair trial. There's no law the media has to be abide by that, but we feel compelled by our ethics and sense of fairness.

There will be plenty of time for commentary, criticism and discussion once justice has taken its course.

Will the fed action create jobs?

Big news today: the Federal Reserve is buying some $40 billion in mortgage backed securities a month to stimulate the economy.

From the Associated Press story:


The Fed said it will spend $40 billion a month to buy mortgage bonds for as long as it deems necessary to make home buying more affordable. It plans to keep short-term interest rates at record lows through mid-2015 — six months longer than previously planned. And it's ready to try other stimulative measures if hiring doesn't pick up.

"The idea is to quicken the recovery," Chairman Ben Bernanke said at a news conference. But Bernanke made clear that he thinks the economy will need the Fed's help even after the recovery strengthens.

The good news is that this activity will likely keep home mortgage rates at their historic low, keep interest rates on other things low and hopefully bolster the stock market, which is back to its pre-2008 recession highs but still off its all time high of 14,000 by about 700 points.

If interest rates are low, it's easier to buy a home, which we know is key to household formation of consumer units (families) who spend a bunch of money on things like refrigerators, furniture and other durable goods, demand for which creates a lot of good jobs.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said part of the aim is to boost the stock market because people feel richer, more likely to spend. And I suppose that is partly true for SOME of the people.

But I was thinking of the Fed action while reading another story on why lots of baby boomers have put off retirement: their retirement earnings have been hammered by stock market but also low interest rates.

So they remain in the workforce.

Here's a telling fact from a good story in the Kansas City Star:


"In 1991, just one in 10 workers told the Employee Benefit Research Institute that they planned to wait to retire until they were older than 65. By 2007, three in 10 said that.
This year? More than four in 10."

And another:

"The number of older workers has grown more rapidly than any other age group in the last few years. This year, 18.6 percent of those 65 and older were participating in the labor force, compared with 13 percent in 2002."

And when you think of our main economic problem right now - too many people are unemployed - you can see how this is impacting those job numbers.

If seniors stay working past 65, we don't have the normal fill in from younger workers. The jobs from retirees are no longer opening up at the rate they once did.

This is helping in part to create higher unemployment and for a longer period of time.

The bigger question then is: Will any jobs program short of getting those 65 year olds to retire going to work?

We'd be better to work on incentives to get them to retire. Maybe a one-time exemption from taxes that go with lump sum withdrawals of retirement money. Maybe make medicare eligibility at 62 instead of 65.

Our job problem may be more related to demographics than structural issues in the private sector.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/18/3768575/for-many-boomers-retirement-age.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/18/3768575/for-many-boomers-retirement-age.html#storylink=cpy

Voter ID: two views of fraud

A presentation by the League of Women Voters St. Peter Chapter on problems with Minnesota's Voter ID amendment drew cheers from the downtown Kiwanis Club at its Monday meeting.

Mostly because of the argument that there is very little voter impersonation fraud that has ever been uncovered and the amendment therefore is an unnecessary infringement on voting rights.

North Mankato City Council candidate and budget watchdog Kim Spears brings this story to my attention: "Maryland democratic congressional candidate drops out of race after allegations she voted in two states."
Officials of the Maryland Democratic party asked candidate Wendy Rosen to withdraw from the race after they investigated themselves the allegations of voting fraud and were confident they were true.

So we find ourselves with two points of view on the idea of the Voter ID amendment.

The St. Peter LWV outlined in a leaflet that it opposes the Photo ID/Elections Amendment.

Spokeswomen Lynn Solo and Helen Baumgartner made the case, and they emphasized their presentation was intended to be factual not political.

They lay out in a kind of flow chart the amendment language, then the language in the statute and then raise questions about the questions left unanswered by the language.

Essentially, the league's position is that the change in voting laws sought by the amendment will be "extreme and unnecessary changes" that it will "create hurdles" to voting for absentee and military voters, that it will be "harder for seniors  to vote," and end "election day registration as we know it."

They say it's another "unfunded government mandate" and will create a new system of provisional balloting that increases property taxes and other vital services as a result will be cut.

Spears says the Maryland case is "an interesting situation bearing on the upcoming ballot initiative."

Certainly, the Maryland case will be a high profile kind of media-attention getting case that will focus on the issue of voter fraud and impersonation, though the Washington Post said it was unclear if state Voter ID laws would prevent this kind of multi-state voter fraud.

I also don't consider the Downtown Kiwanis Club a bastion of liberalism, so the applause for the LWV was a bit surprising.

The Free Press has written two editorials on the Voter ID amendment, basically arguing there are a lot of questions and how they are answered could very well cost taxpayers more money to solve a problem that may not be as big as we think.

It all comes down to how one wants to solve problems in an imperfect voting system. Budget hawks should of course be willing to apply a strict cost/benefit analysis, the cost being the expenses associated with photo IDs and the benefits being the prevention of fraud. But there also may be a cost in preventing legitimate people from voting.

I will say this: If the amendment passes and it becomes law eventually, there will be plenty of stories on how legitimate citizens were denied their right to vote through some government snafu.

Those stories will be rampant because almost every news organization in the country is going to find one or two cases - easily - with the way this will be set up.

Medicare costs need to be controlled

Both Obama and Romney campaigns don't want to tell seniors the ugly truth: Medicare costs have to be reined in. They're not sustainable. And we either need to cut benefits or raise taxes to pay for it or change pretty significantly the way Medicare services are delivered.

We might have to do a little of each.

There's a great explanation on the claims of each campaign and how they're deceptive on Medicare at FactCheck.org. They also give great background on the history of Medicare.

It's not surprising that Congress and the president have raised Medicare payroll taxes several times over the years to help keep the health care benefits flowing to in important voting constituency.

But after reading it, you can't come to any other conclusion that we either need to rein in benefits or raise taxes to pay for care that's costly and inefficient and will eventually consume a greater share of GDP.

But the good news is we know how to cut Medicare costs. We only have to have the courage to do it.

Obama's plan was to reduce payments to health care providers and make them share the pain of cost reductions. Critics argue it might not be enough, and some providers might stop taking Medicare patients. He also planned to cut subsidies to private insurance plans offering Medicare.

Romney and Ryan want to allow more private insurance into serving Medicare patients as well as leaving traditional Medicare in place, figuring competition will drive down costs. But that only works if we have a lot of medical providers competing. And more and more, the health care market is consolidating and getting fewer competitors. Some worry that the private insurers will pick the healthiest seniors and leave the really sick ones for the government to serve through traditional Medicare.

Seniors today and those of the near future, Baby Boomers, have to get realistic about all of this and realize they are not going to be able to go to the doctor for every little ailment and have the government mostly pay for it.

They're going to have to go to a more managed care system, where they learn prevention, where they learn they can see a nurse instead of a doctor.

This is not Medicare as we know it. It has to change.

I took a call from a guy today who said he didn't rape his daughter

I took a call from a guy today who said he didn't rape his daughter.

Now you know the kind of calls newspaper editors get.

Not always pretty. Not always pleasant. Hard to say if they're real.

This man wanted to know if we wanted to do a story about a wrongly accused person who was going to prison and whose life and reputation would be basically ended because prosecutors were charging him with said crime.

I told him we follow these kinds of stories through official court actions. If there's a trial, we would report the defense's case.

We don't however, sit down with those accused and try to do what it takes investigators, prosecutors and defense lawyers hundreds of hours to do: determine a verdict.

We wouldn't have the resources nor the desire, nor is it our purpose, to be judge, jury and jailer.

Still, for some reason he must have thought the newspaper could help.

It's not unheard of that people are falsely charged with a crime. For all I know, he may be innocent.

And if he is, the news will be: He was charged with a crime. A heinous crime perhaps. And he was acquitted.

We always report the verdict. An if he's innocent, that gets in the newspaper.

In the end, we'd be willing to tell his side of it, but we we're going to do the justice system's job. He didn't seem satisfied with this answer.

He said never mind and hung up.

Naked bean bagger escaped identification

Many people I talk to say they would rather not admit to some of the things they did in college or when they were young.

I suspect that will be the case with the "Naked bean bagger" we wrote a story about a few weeks ago.

Police were called by neighbors who reported the young gent was playing a game of outdoor bean bag, or "corn hole" by some, in his birthday suit.

The original story is better than I can tell it, so if you hadn't seen it, here it is.

Suffice it to say, the gent attempted to hide from police, leaving his clothes, and importantly his I.D., behind. The police showed up but couldn't get him to answer the door. They thus secured his clothes and I.D. as "evidence."

In the news business, the story of the "Naked bean bagger" is what we call a bona fide "talker." It's a story that is not terribly important in the scheme of things. It's certainly not a public safety hazard or crime spree, but it is nonetheless, something we know from all our Google web analytics will drive traffic at our website through the roof.

It will bury the needle on our "Chartbeat," a service we subscribe to that measures activity on our website in real time.

We were not disappointed. With a little help from the nationally known weird news website Fark.com, that story generated about 70,000 page views. Fark seeks weird news from websites and then creates a link from their website to the news website.

Fark also provides a bit of commentary on just how funny a story might be.

Of our story, the website said "Headline about police responding to naked bean bag game is okay, but could have been true Fark gold if they'd used the other name the article gives for the game"

Our headline: "Naked bean bag game turns into hide and seek with suspect."
Fark's suggested head for "gold status" "Naked corn hole game turns into hide and seek with suspect"
 
Fark has thousands of followers to catch all the weird news from around the country and so when you are "farked" you get a lot of traffic to your website.

The story and all the details were part of the public record. That means name of person, address is included.

However, we chose not to name the young man in a good-hearted attempt to protect him from embarrassment. He's not really a criminal the public needs to fear, at least in our minds. In the news business, there's not a compelling reason to name him.

We suspect there may have been some alcohol involved here and it was an awfully hot day, in the young man's defense.

We know people know who this young man and is and it's probably all over someone's Twitter account, but we try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

We here at The Free Press were all young once too.

Violence, white supremacy and the American mindset

Another day, another shooting.

Random acts of violence seem to be occurring on a regular basis recently, and once again, the country asks itself what are people thinking in the wake of the murder of six Sikh church goers in Milwaukee, by  a white supremacist.

Well, these perpetrators are obviously not thinking very much, and if they are, they've somehow logically concluded that hate is a legitimate mindset and violence is a legitimate solution.

I always ask myself: "How did they get this way."

You can go through the list of usual suspects. Bad parents, bad neighborhoods, bad friends, bad education, society in general, genetics.

But it's worth considering given that most babies don't start out violent. Most kids don't start out violent. Somewhere along the way, something happened that helped reinforce the idea that violence worked as a coping mechanism.

And there's not much one can do about any of the above in any kind systematic way.

Small things can be done along the way. Kids can be taught tolerance at school. They can be taught to settle conflict without violence, without bullying.

But at some point, and this is the scary part, the volume of at-risk kids overwhelms the system. More fall through the cracks. They end up in groups like the white supremacists.

At the growth in at-risk kids to a society that seems to be less willing to deal with them year after year, only building more penitentiaries.

We won't stop crazy incidents like those in Milwaukee or Aurora, Colo., with any program. But we've got to have solutions in place that at least reduce the risk of more and more people falling through the cracks.

The odds will only get worse if we don't.

Would you like some ethanol with your meal?

I covered farming when crop prices were never above cost and always too low.

As years went on, ethanol, of course, was heralded as the savior for low corn prices. In the ensuring decade or so, it worked like a charm. Market prices for corn were solid, and the government subsidies went down.

Now, apparently, we think ethanol is the culprit for corn prices being too high. And we want the government to fix that too.

Where are we? 1984. George Orwell would be proud of how good has become bad and bad has become good. Unispeak reins.

Livestock groups have corralled some lawmakers into asking the EPA to grant an exception to the ethanol mandate in fuel, meaning less ethanol would be made and less corn used, thereby lowering the prices for livestock producers who buy corn for feed.

Some say high corn prices are killing the livestock industry and companies that make and sell meat.

Of course, the corn industry and ethanol promotion groups argue the waiver should not be granted and the market should be allowed to work.

The first government policy on ethanol worked. It became an industry that consumed millions of bushels of corn, now almost 40 percent of U.S. domestic production.

Why is this a problem?

The proposed new government policy aims to turn back the one that actually worked.

The livestock industry should like, uh, buck up, and pay higher prices or reduce their consumption, kind of like the rest of us have to do when prices get high.

It's called the free market system.

Views on news: tax breaks and jobs

For years now it seems, the left and the right have diametrically opposed views on if tax cuts to the wealthy or business help create jobs.

It's an argument about 32 years old, and one on which Ronald Reagan was elected. Of course, Reagan endorsed the idea of tax cuts to create jobs and won over Jimmy Carter with the country hoping he was right. His Republican primary opponent, George H.W. Bush famously called it voodoo economics.

The debate tends to evolve into a social argument versus an economic one. The social one, of course, gets much more media play because it's simple to understand and easy to sell with buzz phrases, like tax the rich, class warfare, the 99 percent talk as well as job killing talk.

My old master program economic professors would be amused at the ability of politicians to abscond with reason and replace it with vitriol.

Even today, there's a little bit of pseudo economics running around. The left or even center left tends to point to the record of how we cut taxes with the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and we actually lost jobs the next five or six years in the aggregate, across the country.

While that looks like the tax cuts didn't work, it may be only partially true. It's true that employment went down, but that doesn't mean SOME employers didn't hire because they got a tax cut.

The real point here is that if we pronounced our policy will create jobs, we should expect people will measure that across the board, throughout the country. But even my most liberal professors would admit that there are many factors that influence job creation including wages, demand for products, imports, exports, the interest rate and the value of the dollar.

Unforunately as we've come to learn, bizarre, unregulated things like credit default swaps also influence job creation.

And anecdotally, we can find stories that prove both points. I know a high-earning hedge fund manager who pays the low 15 percent rate on the vast majority of their capital gain income. This person told me if they got a tax break, they would not likely buy a new car (they already have one) a new house (already got a nice one of those) or really would expend too much more income, except may go out for dinner a little more.

Of course, they would have more money to invest, which shouldn't be discounted, but it doesn't give the same bang for the buck as consumer spending, which makes up 70 percent of the U.S. economy.

At the same time, I know a small business person who said if they got a $3000 tax break on their property tax bill, they probably would hire a new employee.

Both have circumstances that direct their decision. And we should know that if we think a general policy will affect everyone the same, we are simply kidding ourselves.

The key, (if you've hung with me this long, congratulations for caring about this stuff , and you're among the top 10 percent at least) is we have to understand how a policy might affect the "aggregate." In other words, how will it affect most people or a large enough share to make a difference in job creation.

And we should ask our politicians who are espousing these economic theories this crucial question: Tell us of a study, an example or data that suggest at the most your theory about the policy is true? And if they can't give a good answer to that, we ask: So are we just supposed to take your statement on faith, just believe you that it will happen?

So do tax cuts create jobs? The answer is basically, "It depends.'

And if they end up concluding we should just believe them. Buyer beware!

Colorado shootings and the local sentiment on guns

The view of the world from Mankato, Minn., got pretty crazy this past week.

From the Aurora, Colo., theater shootings from the weekend to the biggest penalties ever imposed on a college football program, the wires were burning with breaking news and the locals weighed in too.

I'm always amazed how quickly gun rights supporters e-mail me when these shootings occur. I don't know if they're attempting a pre-emptive strike against newspaper editorials condemning gun laws, but there's nothing like a mass shooting to get gun defenders motivated.

The Free Press editorial board has not taken a firm stand on gun laws for some time. We'll likely discuss a response next week, but it will likely be centrist as our editorial board has a diverse political mix of thinking on most issues.

The prevailing pundit buzz is that both political parties are afraid to change gun laws, make them tougher and take on the National Rifle Association. It's a sentiment I tend to agree with.

The irony is that the assault rifle ban that was in place for about 10 years came from the shooting of the staff member - James Brady - of Republican President Ronald Reagan. It's equally interesting that Democrats and Republicans voted to end the ban or let it expire.

But even hunting and gun enthusiasts I know still can't see a need to sell multiple-shot, semi-automatic assault rifles.

Talks at a lunch this week centered around how its tougher to get a driver's license, or sign up for cable or cell phones than it is to buy assault rifles and order 6,000 rounds of ammunition online.

Of course, there are many hardcores who claim the Colorado shooter would have gotten an assault rifle even if they were illegal. That may be true, but one cannot argue it would be JUST AS EASY to get an assault rifle if they were illegal versus them being at the counter at the local gunshop.

Maybe if we made buying an assault rifle as tough as we're trying to make voting, we'd be dangerous, or, I mean, more safe.

Latest political moves offers some surprises

It’s no surprise that the House Republicans voted Thursday for the 33^rd time to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or the health care reform.

Even the right-leaning media declared it a symbolic act and I guess it was to re-affirm House GOP opposition to the law after the Supreme Court and one of their own, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, was the deciding vote upholding the law.

There were some surprises though in other political arenas.

It was somewhat surprising the Gov. Mark Dayton decided he would make the final decisions on which of some 90 projects would get a piece of the $47.5 million in bonding money the Legislature allocated as a kind of open-ended, competition for the funds.

In a conference call with DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips, we learned he was not all that excited about having the final decision, as was to be the initial plan.

He told The Free Press “It defies logic” that the Legislature left it up to DEED.

A day later, Dayton announced he would be making the final decision after reviewing DEED's recommendations.

It's in a way new unprecedented power given to a governor, and especially surprising since it was the opposite party that gave him that power.

That Dayton will decide may or may not be good for Mankato’s request for $14 million in bonding for the Verizon Wireless Center expansion.

It may be good because Dayton is well aware of how many times we’ve asked for the money and been denied while other very similar projects around the state have been granted funds.

There was no subtly among Democrats in asserting our projects were long denied by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty through line item vetoes simply because Mankato was represented by Democrats and other areas were represented by Republicans.

Democrats voiced the same criticism even stronger this past year when Mankato was left out of the bonding bills while projects in Rochester and St. Cloud, represented by Republicans, were left in.

So it seems Dayton would be sympathetic to the nature of that battle and how Mankato has been on the losing end for no good reason.

On the other hand, the governor could see the recent Highway 14 project he helped approve as one that gives us our “share” of state dollars.

Stay tuned.

Health care ruling poses huge risk for Republicans in election

The conventional wisdom that the U.S. Supreme Court's upholding the Affordable Care Act will provide election ammo for Republicans that will be armor piercing shells against the Obama campaign shows again the over-reading and over reaching on the part of Republican strategists.

They're not over-reading because people will embrace the act now that the Supreme Court said it's constitutional, but because they have not accurately assessed the risk of people misunderstanding the ruling. And, most importantly, they have not really assessed how well their complicated message of opposing the ruling on health care will be received.

First, let's talk about who's in play here. As always, it's the independents, who both parties desperately need. The Supreme Court ruling will hold sway with some of those people. After all, until recently, the Supreme Court was the most respected institution in the land. Political rhetoric from justices like Anton Scalia is changing that rather quickly.

Still, that the Supreme Court approved the constitutionality of ACA is pretty big. That, alone, will sway some independents to at least give it another look.

If Obama people are smart, they will capitalize on the "another look" and do a media blitz explaining the benefits of the ACA, such as people earning $50,000 a year can probably get cheaper health insurance.

Second, think about what Republicans have to sell. They have to convince independents that the benefits some are already receiving -- keeping your kids on your health insurance until they're 26 and the pre-existing conditions issue -- will be good to do away with.

Then, they have to convince those independents that they're be able to restore those benefits (many Republicans have endorsed them) by passing a new law, with some new, unknown revenue source.

Even if they have a good plan, it's a very complicated message. And complicated message will not sell in a general election. You've got to be able to explain policies to people in a few sentences.

As a media expert, here's my best shot at how you would sell the Republican idea in a few simple sentences. As a salesman, you have to answer objections before they come up.

Objection number 1: "How do you explain the Supreme Court rules this constitutional?"

Republican candidate: "The Supreme Court isn't always right."

Questioner "Isn't the majority considered conservative and mostly appointed by Republicans?"

Republican candidate; "Well yes, sort of."

It's really tough to answer that question. You could say. "The Supreme Court was right. They called the penalty a tax."

Ok, that may work

Questioner: "So how would you repeal it all, give me the good parts and pay for it?"

Republican candidate: "We'd let the private sector set prices based on all these new benefits. That's the way the world works."

Honestly, I can't figure out how else they would sell their position. And with angst between employees and employers at a record high with high unemployment, I'm guessing a lot of folks, even independents, are not really going to buy the private sector thing.

Their recent experience with the private sector is mostly negative. Even if the private sector could do this well, people, because of their RECENT experience, will be hard pressed to buy that argument. (What has the private sector done for me lately?)

A recent poll by Politico sorts of backs up my reasoning here.

Independents, and Americans in general, are split 50-50 bascially on the Supreme Court ruling. That's in very sharp contrast with general polls that say only 30- 40 percent of Americans agree with the ACA.

So how can 50 percent agree with the ruling while 60 to 70 percent oppose the act? Wouldn't those who oppose the ruling parallel the number who oppose the law?

I've always felt the poll numbers on people supporting the ACA were distorted because number one, people don't really know yet the benefits they will get, and two, it's a very complicated issue.

Republicans should look to their colleague governor in Michigan, who was one of the few who said he was going to set up health care exchanges in his state per the federal law so the feds don't do it for his citizens.

Data is starting to come out on benefits of the act -- how many young people are on their insurance and importantly, a rebate expected to be given to millions of Americans on their health premium via the provisions of ACA very soon.

Those will be difficult objections to answer for Republicans and more importantly the messages will be complicated, meaning they won't reach as many people.

When an economic system has too much "Greece"

I don't consider myself short of education with six-years of post-secondary, but I was until recently just kind of confounded and befuddled on how a small country like Greece could essentially pull down the world economy.

A very fine piece by the Associated Press that can be found here at The Free Press website is the best explanation yet that I have seen.

I will try to give you the Reader's Digest version to pique your interest and then you can read the detailed stuff that some journalist -- not blogger -- has taken time to learn, understand and report in a credible and digestible way.

Essentially, Greece's economy is a mess. They've got too much debt, and don't spend their money wisely. People work but don't get paid by the private sector, and some people don't work and still get paid by the government.

But there are a lot of bigger countries that hold a lot of that Greek debt. So if Greece doesn't or can't pay, those countries and the big banks associated with those countries don't necessarily fail, but they face a big time hurt.

And when they hurt, they lend less money. The bank examiners are on them and they generally pull in lending at a time when the economy needs money.

Secondly, this whole Euro currency issue ties the world together in ways not readily apparent. If Greece goes back to the drachma, a less stable currency than the unified Euro, people in Greece will lose confidence the currency will be worth anything (why would it) and they would begin to buy stuff, hoard stuff and pull their money as quickly as possible out of the banks.

And because most countries like Greece and the U.S. have what is called "fractional reserve systems" people can't pull their money all at once because the banks don't have it. They lent it out knowing that not everyone usually needs their money all at the same time.

Of course, a bank run in Greece could cause bank runs in other countries that hold Greek debt. It's not logical, but then we're living in a crazy world.

And another problem on the Euro front. If Greece dumps the Euro (it appears now given the recent election it WILL NOT dump the Euro), those who hold Greek debt in Euros are all of a sudden worried because they fear the drachma will not be worth as much as Euros. (They're probably right).

So they sell like crazy the Euro on the futures exchanges. Others sell other stuff including international stocks based on Euros. It's a downward spiral.

Eventually, this debt and fears of Greece debt being worthless goes back to multi-national banks that do business in America. They actually built complicated investment products called "credit default swaps" (remember 2008 crisis?), which are like insurance against something like Greek debt being worthless.

Hence, if Greek debt is worthless, the credit default swap insurance kicks in at a higher rate than anyone expected, and more people have to pay, and pay, and pay. Banks or investment houses paying out credit insurance again, have less money to lend.

There. How's that for Reader's Digest. Again, read the whole story here. It's long, but it's very informative.

Conversations on bullying

Bullying has been a so called "trending" topic in the news lately, and it's got our attention here at The Free Press.

Recent news stories that two students in southeastern Minnesota committed suicide in part because of how they were bullied at school created a lot of public interest in the issue.

The news stories motivated people to go to town-hall meetings. A meeting in Mankato a few weeks ago was packed with nearly a hundred people as the statewide bullying task force came to town. The task force had planned to be here before the suicides happened, but those events seemed to draw more people to the meeting.

The Rochester Post-Bulletin held a town-hall meeting Tuesday on the subject prompted by the suicides.

Myself and other Free Press editors and reporters recently met with MSU professor Walter Roberts who was selected by Gov. Dayton to be on the statewide bullying task force because of his expertise in counseling and education and the issue of bullying.

We wanted to get his input on what the newspaper could do to address the issue of bullying in the community.

Several interesting takeaways talking to Roberts, who noted he was not speaking as a spokesman for the task force but simply as an education professional:

Bullying has always been around: It is now exacerbated by a number of societal changes including the expansion of the Internet and social media. Whereas kids could once escape bullying by going home, now it's almost 24/7 as they spend a lot of time on Facebook and other sites.

When you're bullying someone or being mean to someone on Facebook, we can't see their reaction like we might in person. So it's easier to bully online. It's lower risk to the perpetrator.

Roberts looks at bullying as a symptom of a larger societal issue of civility. Kids learn how to treat each other by family influences but also by media influences, newspaper stories, talk radio and any other exposure they have to how people interact.

There's more incivility today all around us and that likely breeds more copying behaviors among kids that result in bullying.

Bullying isn't a school problem, it's a societal problem. Kids just happen to congregate at schools.

More and more the message kids get from society and media is: "someone has to be dominant." That's not good.

Roberts surmises Mankato might be doing better to help prevent bullying, but he isn't sure what is working. It could be a number of things. The goal would be to find what is working and report on that.

Roberts suggests newspapers can 1) Make people aware of the issue, sensitize them to it 2) Get people to accept information for combating it. 3) Get communities to talk about it. 4) Report on what the community is or isn't doing.

Lots of good ideas. We'll be formulating a plan soon to develop some stories and possibly a series of stories and public events.

Stay tuned.

Election framing already happening with Dayton, GOP

One of the last acts of the 2012 Legislature will likely be one of the first themes bandied about in the 2012 elections between DFLers and Gov. Mark Dayton and the Minnesota GOP that controls the Legislature.

Dayton vetoed the GOP business and property tax relief bill in a move that many Republicans called everything from outrageous to underhanded. They claimed they met Dayton "half way" on his spending limits for the bill and he still vetoed it.

They claimed there was an understanding that if GOP helped passed the Vikings stadium bill, Dayton would help them with one of their main priorities in business tax relief.

Dayton vetoed the bill saying they should have known better and that he made clear he was not going to sign any bill that increased the state deficit.

It's always hard to decipher who is more truthful in these deals because it often relies on what someone meant when they said such and such.

But, from a strictly political perspective, Dayton would seem to have the upper hand in the narrative. I'm not saying he's right. In fact, the tax bill he vetoed didn't sound very far off from a bill a Democrat Rudy Perpich - one of Dayton's mentors - would have signed a few years ago. And there certainly were provisions in there that would help many small businesses in outstate Minnesota.

But this is where the narrative comes into play. Most typical voters don't really want to invest a lot of time in understanding detailed nuances of legislation. Who can blame them? It's time consuming and well, sometimes, mind-boggling.

So for those folks who just vote based on more simple explanations of things, here's how it will play out.

Dayton: "I vetoed that bill because it increased the deficit." Done, end of story.

Republicans: "Dayton is a job-killing governor for vetoing our tax bill that would have given business property tax relief."

Most people can see with clarity that the bill would have increased the deficit. The Republicans are not denying that.

But it's more complicated to know if a bill would have created jobs or not. Besides, most folks see that jobs are on the rise, so what's the big deal if a few more are "not created."

I'm no political pundit or prognosticator, I just know from 25 years in the newspaper business, how people read things and how they hear and understand things.

Bottom line: My view is that Dayton has an easier sell through a less complicated message. It doesn't make it right. But if one thinks about it, he has framed himself as the "fiscal conservative" and put Republicans in the bad spot of proving him wrong.

When have Republicans ever put on the defensive to claim a Democrat's fiscal conservatism is not right? Not often. And, again, it's going to be tough to prove. The bill would've increased the deficit. No one on the other side is denying that.

Again, I would not be qualified to be hired as an advisor to the Republican Party, but I would have figured out a way to cut spending to pay for the business tax cut. Then, at least, they can say, they weren't going to increase the deficit.

Vikings stadium debate: some entertaining and interesting snippets

It seems it takes a $1 billion construction project to get state legislators to debate economic theory and for others' eyes to gloss over.

In Tuesday's Senate debate on the Vikings stadium, DFL Sen. John Marty continued to argue sports stadiums don't bring one new dollar of economic development to a city, citing numerous studies. In fact, he argued dropping cash out of a helicopter would generate more business than a stadium.

From my experience, many of those studies do contend in fact just that, and argue convincingly in some cases. In fact, I've seen studies that suggest stadiums LOWER the average wage in a town because they do create jobs, but a lot of lower paying jobs, so they lower the average wage.

Others contended, and rightly so, that the $18 million to $25 million in player income taxes cannot be denied. That's true. You lose them, you lose the income tax.

Marty tried to argue that the spending people would do on other things without Vikings stadium would bring similar income tax revenue.

To that I say, not even close. Let's just take one salary, say of Adrian Peterson. He gets about $15 million a year. It would take the employment of 500 new workers making $30,000 a year to pay roughly the same same income taxes as Peterson.

And that's probably a very conservative estimate because the people at $30,000 would pay a much lower rate than Peterson.

If Marty is arguing the number of jobs created by people going to movies and plays versus a Vikings football game would generate the same in income taxes as Vikings players, he is not using common sense and his math and assumptions are very far into conjecture land.

Yes, perhaps stadiums don't contribute to substantially higher OVERALL economic impact. One can debate that based on a number of assumptions.

But there is some new spending that happens with a stadium. Sometimes it isn't the amount one would spend, but it's the rate of spending. Do I spend more money when I go to a Vikings or Twins game than when I go to the local pub? Yes. Do I spend it faster? Yes.

As in all things economic, one cannot assume a cause and effect "ALL OF THE TIME." So, in some cases, Marty is right, the money would spent anyway. In other cases, he is not. Some spend more on sports than movies and would then SAVE less.

In the end, for me, it's not so much about the economics, though I do clearly think there is some benefit.

It's also a quality of life thing, as much as that is a soft cost. Don't forget the old phrase "We'd be a cold Omaha" without pro sports. I believe that is very true.

A few other choice quotes from the Senate Vikings stadium debate.

From DFL Sen. John Marty,

"You don't build a $1 billion stadium for monster trucks" referring to argument that state gets benefit from other uses of stadium.

That is getting one of my top votes for snarkiest quote of the day.

Another Marty quote:

"If the team were not here, we spend the money in other ways....we don't throw it in a recycling bin, in the garbage, flush it down the toilets. We don't do that."

Nice three phrase rhythm on that one.

From Sen. Roger Chamberlain, R, Lino Lakes:

"We can keep 'em here. We need a better deal. We don't make any money on this deal, " and income tax from player's salaries is "a rounding error."

Sen. Sean Nienow, R, Cambridge, commenting on the overriding of Minneapolis requirement for a referendum on paying its share via city charter.

"This bill says to the voters, to the electorate, to the voters, your desires are irrelevant, because we think this is important, you're inconvenient....cause you might cause a delay."

DFL Sen. Patricia Torres Ray from Minneapolis, in response to Nienow's strong words on Minneapolis charter.

She spoke quietly in her Hispanic accent:

 "Please don't use this argument and don't use us the way they are using it, because it is hypocrisy. Because it is not about Minneapolis....just don't use it today, because what you are saying is not reflecting honesty."

To which Nienow replied:

"Madam President I resent those remarks. I have been consistent and honest and I deeply resent that."

More fun to come tomorrow.

When bonding bill turned into political theater

I don't remember the last time I listened to a floor debate at the Minnesota Legislature, but the two hours I spend listening to the debate online over the bonding bill Monday jump started my blog idea list again.

So here goes.

I generally think people in public office are fine people. Ninety-five percent of them have a true desire to serve a given public, though many more than that have sometimes "different" ideas of who that public is.

Still. I like elected leaders or candidates. They are generally smart people who want to do good. They will engage you in intellectual conversations and most have learned how to argue fairly and respectfully.

But sometimes, you just wonder where some of this stuff is coming from given floor debates.

A few examples.

When Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL and Iron Ranger, got up to offer his amendment that would help solar equipment manufacturing companies in his district and others get a provision that would encourage bonding projects to use solar, he was met by Mary Franson, R, Alexandria, who asked if Rep. Rukavina knew what "Solyndra" was.

Of course, Solyndra is a solar energy company that has defaulted on similar federal loans in a big way.

After a short speech by Franson, Rukavina responded that Franson's steel worker union grandfather was turning in his grave and he would be supporting jobs through this initiative. (Sounds like a line out of the Godfather)

Franson responded that yes her grandfather was turning in his grave because of the excessive spending of government.

Another representative got in the middle of this debate to point out Solyndra's default came in a federal program that was established by the Bush Administration, just to get that on the record.

Franson appeared to be done making her point and said she didn't agree with Bush all the time.

In another exchange on the bill, Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R, Mazeppa, raised his voice against the solar bill arguing that a company owned by billionaire T. Boone Pickens was suing and 85-year old grandmother's with Alzheimer's near his district in a wind project dispute.

It could be true, and it certainly is a dramatic story to introduce into a debate about solar energy incentives. There is apparently a property dispute with landowners on the project near Red Wing.

Actually, what politicians say on the House floor doesn't have to be true. The law exempts elected leaders in the center of a public debate like this from libel laws.

The vote on the solar enticements went down in the House, 62-69.

But it was fun watching this political theater play out. Ok. I'll admit, if I think this was fun to watch I may not have enough fun things to do, but Act I is barely over.

Weekend buzz: politics: teacher layoffs, Vikings stadium

Teacher seniority LIFO bill vetoed by Dayton

 The Free Press editorial board endorsed the idea of ending the so-called LIFO (last in, first out) seniority system of  layoffs for public school teachers earlier this year.

But in looking at Gov. Mark Dayton's veto message, and speaking for myself and not the board, I can't say I disagree with his argument on why he vetoed the bill. 

The legislation would make it a state law that schools not use seniority as the only criteria for layoffs, and that teacher evaluations should also play a role.

Education groups opposed the measure and business groups and others favored it. Only a couple of Democrats voted for it as it was going through the Legislature, and Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed it.

 But Dayton vetoed the LIFO bill saying it was 1) not developed in a bipartisan way or with teachers 2) that it unduly prejudiced hard-working school teachers and 3) it replaced the seniority system with a vague formula.

He likened it to a business, which he said wouldn't tell its employees there's going to be a new evaluation system, but we can't tell you exactly what it is until four years from now.

Can't say I'd disagree with this premise. I wonder why the effective date of the bill was four years from now.

Still, it seems Dayton leaves room for eventually approving such a law by suggesting from his veto message that if the evaluations were developed cooperatively, were more specific and had a reasonable timeline, he'd go for it.

Sounds reasonable. It seems he made his objections clear early on as well. He had the same objection to the bill when he visited with The Free Press editorial board a few months ago.

Actually, school districts have the ability to negotiate their own layoff policies with current law, but proponents felt as a practical matter most just went by seniority.

As an editorial board we generally favored the idea that teachers should be evaluated and that should play a role in whether they keep their job when layoffs come. That happens in the private sector, so it would be equitable that it happen in the public sector, at least in some form.

But the governor makes some good points.

Vikings stadium: I predict passage on Monday

I'm not sure I would put money on the prognostications of a small-town newspaper editor, but my guess is that the Minnesota Legislature will pass a Vikings stadium bill in some form before they leave St. Paul this year.

The bill has passed all the committees controlled by the Republican Majority. It would look bad if a good number of the Republican caucus didn't support it.

The Democrats have pledged half the votes needed for passage, modeling the politics of the Twins stadium. So the Democrats can really have a good argument to the people next November that says: "We weren't even in the majority and we offered our votes to pass the Vikings bill."

So, even already, Republicans will have to share credit with Democrats who will get a disproportionate share of the credit.

If it fails, the Republican Majority will get a disproportionate share of the blame. I think Republican Speaker Kurt Zellers realizes this and that's why he said on KFAN Radio he hopes it passes, but is personally against it.

Also. What I'm hearing from outstate Republican legislators is that a lot of them will vote for it because they can tell their constituents it didn't cost them anything. No statewide taxes will be used, and the folks in Good Thunder might like that extra pull table gambling they'll be able to play.

We also have to  remember, yes the Vikings stadium is a Dayton priority, but two Republicans have been the authors and leaders on this in the Legislature.

But there is the wildcard that Republicans will withhold stadium votes because Dayton vetoed their tax bill that offered relief to businesses.

I found it odd that the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce President David Olson would suggest in his comments to the Star Tribune that his organization might not support the Vikings stadium because of Dayton's tax bill veto.

That's like saying because Dayton made it tougher on business in general we're going to make it tougher for the business he likes: not exactly a good position for the head of the state's largest business group to take.  That one just won't sell to well among outstate business, some of whom are very wary of associating with the Minnesota Chamber.

With football fans, who I'm guessing will vote in big numbers this year, I don't think Dayton or the Democrats for that matter, are the loser on this one.

Republicans will come to realize this and some, out of their sincere belief it's a good and needed bill (like author Julie Rosen), will vote for it.

Health care law, Vikings, stabbings

 

Catching up on impact of new health care law

 This report in the Washington Post last week may be a little eye opening for those who follow news on the federal health care reform legislation.

In my mind, the media covers far more of the controversy over this law than some of the substance.

Here's an example of substance. In effect, the law requires insurance companies to provide rebates. Almost unbelievable when you think about it. That provision was actually provided by Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, because it is more or less modeled after Minnesota Law.

Not all is rosy with this provision, however.

Here's the salient points of the Post story:

" Insurance companies will have to return more than $1 billion this year to consumers and businesses, thanks to a new requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, a report released Thursday concludes."

"That's real money, says Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzed industry filings with state insurance commissioners. The law requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they collect on medical care and quality improvements — or issue rebates to policyholders."

"This is one of the most tangible benefits of the health reform law that consumers will have seen to date," said
"
Levitt, an expert on private health insurance. The nonpartisan foundation is an information clearinghouse on the nation's health care system, and its research is widely cited."

The report comes with a caveat. It lacks data on the nation's most populous state, California, because complete filings there were not available. Nonetheless, the analysis estimates that consumers and businesses in other states will receive rebates of $1.3 billion, in some cases in the form of a discount on next year's premiums.

The insurance industry says consumers should take little comfort from the rebates, because the companies expect premiums to go up overall as a result of new benefits and other requirements of the new law.

"The net of all the requirements will be an increase in costs for consumers," said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the main industry trade group.

"The report says the rebates are only one of the ways in which consumers may benefit from tighter scrutiny of the health insurance industry under the federal law, which provides funding for state regulators to monitor the companies more closely. Self-conscious insurers may be hesitating to push state regulators for premium increases as large as they were able to win in the past."

"This `sentinel' effect on premiums has likely produced more savings for consumers and employers than the rebates themselves," the report said.

Fly-speck scrutiny of the insurance industry won't solve the problem of rising health care costs, the report acknowledged, but it "can help to ensure that consumers and businesses get greater value for their premium dollar."

Legislative showdown arrives again.

The scene at the Legislature with a last minute showdown between Gov. Mark Dayton and Republicans in the Legislature seems reminiscent of last year. That seems to be what a lot of the political reporters are saying on Twitter the last few days.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the whole thing breakdown into a "do nothing" year, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if they come to agreement on even one major issue.

I was surprised at Dayton's veto of bipartisan fireworks bill. Not sure what he gained on that one.

Also surprised Republicans did not pass Vikings bill. They apparently had many DFL votes in House and Senate and would have forced Dayton to veto it, which wouldn't have been likely to do.

But waiting, makes it part of Global deal and that may play into Dayton's hand. He gets leverage from something he was already in favor of.

Stabbings in Mankato

Social media on The Free Press website and on our Facebook page has more than the usual number of regular citizens wondering what's going on with these "stabbings."

The stabbing Sunday morning seemed very random, unless something else was operating there. We know the stabbing last week was a domestic dispute related stabbing, apparently.

Interesting that the day we hear about stabbings, the "serial stabber" of Michigan goes to trial. 

From the AP: "Nearly two years later, an Israeli-born drifter goes to trial Tuesday for the first time since Flint's shocking summer of 2010, when as many as 14 people were stabbed in the area, five fatally."

Weird, just weird.

Highway 14 safety gets attention

The saga of Highway 14 took a new turn this week as a safety audit by independent consultants determined the road from North Mankato to New Ulm was even more dangerous and deadly than previously thought.

This story is of great interest to the communities along the road and us here at The Free Press. In 2010, reporter Mark Fischenich spent months researching the crash rates on the highway and interviewing numerous sources for what became a three part-series on the highway.

Pouring over pages and pages of statistics, our report determined Highway 14 from North Mankato to New Ulm had a fatal crash rate nearly twice the state average. In my mind it is one of the most significant reports on public policy this newspaper has ever done.

The series has been recognized with awards from various organizations.

But the recent safety audit only confirms what we determined, but even more so.

The recent safety audit determined it is now three times the state average.

In a positive sign, it appears MnDOT officials are going to do something about the safety. There are several shorter-term solutions to improve safety quickly, including a center cable fence, rumble strips in the median and widening the road in places.

But the complete four lane expansion from North Mankato to New Ulm did not appear to be a solution MnDOT favored, mostly because officials say the state does not have $300 million to spend on it. Although it's important to note Sen. Kathy Sheran got MnDOT officials to say at a recent hearing that the four lane was not out of the question.

We argued in an editorial Thursday, that the money doesn't have to be the hold up. The "convenience project" of upgrading the Highway 169, 494 interchange cost $125 million alone.

I've been communicating with legislators and the governor's office, arguing again and again how important it is to make this road safe and how long we've been fighting for it. Local legislators of both parties are supportive. We're seeing the governor's office give this more personal attention than ever before.

The next step may be gathering public support to at the very least get approval of some of the more significant temporary measures and get the four-lane project on MnDOT's 20 year list for completion.

Stay tuned for how you can help.

Civic center and economic development

People have come up to me, even legislators, and asked if Mankato's bonding request to expand the Verizon Wireless Center is anything that will really generate economic activity or benefit anyone other than those who do business near the civic center.

Well, my short answer is yes. And we can look to history as our evidence.

I covered business in Mankato from 1990 until 1996, and even some after that, but that was the period when the civic center was developed. The 1990 downtown Mankato was a very different place than it is today.

Extremely different.

The River Hills Mall opened in 1991 and much of the downtown "Mankato Mall's" retail left downtown for the mall on the hill. There was nothing that was going to stop this. The business trends were simply dictating it.

Retail tends to be a business that grows best and fastest when it is together in one location. That's not really rocket science.

So, we had all this infrastructure in the mall and the old Brett's building that was not going to be used for retail shopping anymore, or anytime in even the distant future.

The next idea was to create an entertainment district drawing people downtown for eating and drinking places. But you still need traffic to operate those businesses on any kind of scale.

As retail left, so too did the foot traffic. One could not operate a small sandwich shop successfully. Remember Ruth's deli? In the mall's heyday, she did just fine. When retail left, so too did Ruth.

So business and city leaders had to come up with a way to generate traffic downtown. You needed not only regular traffic but also event traffic.

City leaders moved on transforming the mall infrastructure into a government/office use with some success. But they needed to get things going by locating Mankato City Hall and the District 77 offices in what was the old JC Penney building. They also added on a facade and extra space.

But the city and school district offices were one of the first tenants in the new revitalized downtown space. That started the ball rolling. Later, developer Gordon Awsumb came into buy the balance of the mall and the Brett's building.

He was able to get other tenants like the Minnesota Workforce Center, Social Security and Public Defender offices.

It was important Awsumb not just get other business tenants. Businesses come and go. He landed the government office tenants that would bring some stability to the property. The property was sold as a "government services center."

That made a lot of sense.

The Civic Center came next. There was a referendum on imposing a local sales tax to pay for the bonds. It passed. The center was built and opened around 1995.

Since that time, the civic center has had up and down years for concerts, tradeshows and the like. That's not really surprising. Civic center business flows with the economy.

As a business reporter and observer and someone who has some training in economics (a master's degree), I would say that the downtown of 1990 Mankato was going nowhere without some help. It turned out to be government help, and the help of a developer who was able to purchase property at a price that posed little risk if things went south.

One by one, the buildings and infrastructure of the downtown mall would have turned into East St. Louis fast. You might have had a marginal business here or there, but in my mind it would have gone absolutely nowhere. We might have been famous for the ugliest downtown in outstate Minnesota.

The mall owner was going to let it go back to the bank, as they did the Brett's building.

These properties would have cost the city of Mankato much, much more to demolish or deal with than providing a developer with a subsidy or relocating their own offices.

Downtowns at the time were deteriorating all over in cities the size of Mankato.

Today, we've got development, we've got property values that have soared from their 1990 lows. We've got people who have a reason to come downtown. The crowds that come in for civic center events and hockey games would be unimaginable in 1990.

In 1990, if you would've have told someone that in five or six years, you wouldn't be able to find a spot to sit at one of six of seven restaurants before an event, they would have laughed at you.

In economics, you measure business in two ways. You either increase your profits, or minimize your losses.

Mankato was facing some huge losses in 1990 if it did nothing. I would say we not only minimized losses, but we pretty much hit this one out of the park.

Franken meets Free Press editors, writers

Sen. Al Franken met with Free Press editors and writers for about an hour today in his first meeting with the staff since he took office in July 2009.

A few takeaways from the meeting:

Franken only won Nicollet County by about 150 votes and Blue Earth County by about 800. All seven surrounding counties voted for Norm Coleman in the 2008 election.

Franken was asked if he feels he had done anything to convince more of those who voted against him to maybe be with him come re-election time.

"As I go around, I feel people saying "You've exceeded my expectations." he said, then joked, as he thanks them for having low expectations.

Franken seems to really have sort of flown under the media radar for his first four years, which have gone by quickly. That seems like it's by design, as Franken says he wanted to be a "workhorse" not a "showhorse" when he arrived in the Senate, winning the election by only 312 votes and getting only 42 percent of the total.

A few things that he can claim credit for:

He did author a provision in the health care reform bill that requires 80 to 85 percent of  amount insurance companies charge in premiums be spent on actual health care, not on administration or pay bonuses.

It's something he took from what already happens in Minnesota law and it was adopted into the federal health care law. If the companies don't meet the standard, they have to give back part of the premiums to ratepayers.

The law was implemented in 2011, but one study showed it would have saved people $2 billion in general on their health care costs that year. Aetna in Connecticut apparently lowered its premium 10 percent this year because of the law, according to Franken.

Franken also takes credit for a part of the financial reform legislation that removed conflicts of interest rating agencies have with investment banks. The investment banks paid out fees to the rating agencies and rating agencies in turn had incentive to provide ratings that were better than they should have been.

Franken got the amendment on the bill with bipartisan support with 65 votes in the Senate.

It was later watered down in conference committee, because, according to Franken,  Sen. Chris Dodd, author of the bill, didn't like it. But he said the new provision did require a study of the conflict and if it is determined the conflict did not go away, it will be implemented.

Franken also said the federal help for funding Highway 14 may be difficult now that "earmarks" have gone away.

He said he disagreed that the health care mandate is unconstitutional and said a 5-4 Supreme Court decision on repeal would not be good for the court or its legacy.

Florida teen-shooting case provides context in "Castle doctrine" debate

Minnesota Republicans passed the Castle Doctrine law that would have made prosecution of self defense cases tougher, but Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed it.

Dayton argued the vast majority of law enforcement in state said it would make their job more dangerous.

Florida's "Stand your ground" law goes much further than the Castle Doctrine would have, it seems, from a general understanding.

The "neighborhood watch" citizen was apparently chasing Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., thinking he was "up to no good" according to 911 call. Ultimately, they had a confrontation and the neighborhood watch guy shot Martin with a nine millimeter automatic.

Florida authorities didn't charge him because they determined he was in "defensive position" which is allowed under Stand your ground. You don't have to retreat.

The guy, George Zimmerman, contended the 17 year old knocked him down and smashed his head against the ground several times. Police report says he "asked for help but no one would help him." That's apparently when he shot the Martin.

Police report is here.

It's tough to take a side in these cases when Trayvon won't be around to tell his side.

I'm just thinking I'm a older guy, possibly overweight. Do I chase down a 17 year old kid in Florida asking what he's up to, and do I carry a gun while doing it?

Do they need police protection that badly down there.?

Health care reform and the Surpremes (The government doesn't give us free broccoli)

Well the Supremes are going to be center stage this week as they consider cases on different sides of  the health care reform act Obama and Congress approved two years ago.

Key to the discussion: Can the government, under the Constitution's Commerce clause, force people to buy health insurance? It's often framed in that simplistic way, but it's much more complicated than that.

We can't compare it to anything else the government might make us buy because the circumstances are different.

 Those who try to simplify the argument (and there are many taking advantage of the average person's unwillingness to spend a lot of time understanding the issue), argue the government can't require you to buy broccoli or gasoline for that matter, so they should NOT be able to require you to buy health insurance or any other product.

Actually, they don't require you to buy it. If you don't buy it you pay a minimal surcharge of like $95 a year, which I understand escalates a bit after that but not more than say $2,200 a year for a single person making $100,000. (Which, actually would be a pretty good price for emergency health care whenever you needed it, no co-pays etc. I'll explain that next).

The argument is different because "Everyone consumes" health care or if they don't consume it they have the right -- given by Congress actually -- to consume it free of charge if you can't pay.

That law, codified under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)42 USC Sec. 1395dd) was passed in 1986 by Congress and enacted "to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay"

So, it's a law that anyone can get free health care. It reasonably follows that we all should have to pay for that, and it shouldn't be pushed on through the insurance system, but rather spread out through taxation or fines. The mandate is simply collecting a payment for what we gave away in 1986.

The Supremes could rule that since the Commerce clause allows for the providing of goods (health care)  by the government, the government should be able to require payment. Take away the guaranteed goods (health care for free) and you can take away the requirement.

The parallel argument that the government doesn't require us to buy broccoli would have to be set up to show that the government had at one time required broccoli producers to give you broccoli free if you met government's criteria.

We know that's not the case.

Good luck Supremes! Give me a call if you'd like to bounce some ideas off me.

Crime in Mankato region is worrisome

As someone who sees the serious, personal, violent crimes go from police reports to news reports, I am more than a little worried about what appear to trends in violent crime in our region.

I can cite six domestic homicides we have reported in about the last 18 months to two years. This is not something I could have done two years ago.

There was the double homicide in Lewisville, of a mom and her dad killed by the estranged husband. There was the shooting of Svetlana Mundt in front of her children by her estranged husband in Rasmussen Woods.

There was a young mother killed by her boyfriend in Kasota, a young college girl killed by a former boyfriend in broad daylight on Mankato's hilltop and there is a pending case in Blue Earth County Court that is turning in surprising ways in terms of who is guilty, but there was a domestic death.

Then a few weeks ago, we have an estranged husband killing his wife's male friend in Blue Earth, a town about 45 miles south of here.

Recently, another woman was abducted for short time by another former domestic partner. Luckily she escaped.

It's important to point out that these are "regional" crimes, not centered only in the city of Mankato or even North Mankato.

Mankato Director of Public Safety Todd Miller correctly asserts that violent crime in Mankato as well as other crime may be up in 2011 compared to 2010, but it is down from 2006.

He has the data to prove it.  There were 68 aggravated assault in 2006 and 45 in 2011.  There were 46 rapes in 2006 and 19 in  2011, through Nov. 30.

Still, the trend is more than a little unsettling, and we need to think about ways to reduce the risks of these kinds of things happening.

Gov. Dayton meets with FP editorial board, reporters

Gov. Mark Dayton paid his first visit since election to the home office of The Free Press and met for about an hour with The Free Press editorial board and political reporter Mark Fischenich.

A few snippets from the meeting.

Vikings stadium

The Vikings stadium deal was a 50-50 proposition at the start of the legislative session and it is still at 50-50, Dayton said. He noted this is his 14th legislative session as someone in the executive branch, and says he knows anything can happen even at the last minute.

In response to a question, he said he believes there is amazing support for Vikings stadium in outstate Minnesota. He related a story from Republican Sen. Majority Leader Dave Senjem who asked a Rochester restaurateur if he is affected by the Vikings being in state.

The restaurateur said he schedules four more workers on days the Vikings game is on the television. At a Twin Cities restaurant, they put on 12 more people.

Health care law

The state is moving ahead setting up health care exchanges, those comparison shopping institutions for consumers and small business.

He says the task force working on it has very broad support from health care providers, insurance companies even the business lobbies like the Minnesota Chamber and Minnesota Business Partnership.

These will likely go on even if they become voluntary and even if parts of health care law are struck down by the Supreme Court.

Mankato bonding proposal

Dayton has the Mankato project in his bill, but noted the just released House Republican bill does not include it and some other projects.

He says he's glad Mankato area Republican legislators are supporting it but raised his eyebrows and chuckled a bit when he was told the Republican legislators expect him to help with the project. He said he's happy to push for it but needs the support of the local Republicans since the House Republican bill is a very bare bones $280 million, and that the Legislature is controlled by the Republicans.

He remembered former Republicans including some of his relatives who would always support the idea that a strong downtown was great economic engine for a community and was "mystified" Republicans anew don't seem to support that idea.

Highway 14 upgrades

Dayton listened and took notes on editorial board's discussion of Highway 14 and needed upgrades. Free Press series detailed Highway 14 as one of the most dangerous road in the state. Dayton said he was going to check on leftover money in MnDOT funds from overbids that may be able to finance some of the four-lane project from North Mankato to New Ulm. That was a suggestion to me a few years ago from then deputy MnDOT commissioner

He seemed generally interested and said he was going to get a briefing from MnDOT Commissioner Tom Sorel and get back to us on what could be done.

Local leaders have vowed to contact Dayton and have him tell MnDOT to put the road on the 20 year list for improvements. But Dayton said that can be a "slippery slope" dictating to commissions in ways that would seem political.

He also said it was his responsibility to make sure safety as well as congestion were emphasized in MnDOT road project decisions.

Look for Joe Spear's columns on these subjects in the print edition, where there will be more context and analysis.

Bomb threats and responsible journalism

Several readers asked us why we publicize bomb threats at schools and why we used a photograph of one threat written on a bathroom wall.

Generally, we try to do minimal coverage on what we consider non-serious bomb threats. It happens every year. A nice spring day, somebody wants to get out of school, and they create a "bomb threat" not knowing, of course, the seriousness of the situation.

Our rule of thumb: If the kids were evacuated and the school was swept by police or bomb squads, we do a story. We reason people are going to want to know why kids are leaving school. Could be gas leak, could be infrastructure problem, could be bomb threat.

It's important to know how serious authorities are taking the threat as well.

So, we report that news without say but don't put it on the top of page one in a banner headline, unless of course, there was a bomb found.

When there is a second, kind of copycat, bomb threat, we try to downplay....maybe do a brief on the inside news pages. If schools take no action and authorities don't take a threat seriously, we sometimes do nothing.

In the bomb threats a few weeks ago, we did a story on the one at East, and included a picture.

Some readers wondered why we included the picture. Wouldn't that just encourage kids to copycat?

We used the picture after verifying its authenticity. We also determined it was all over Facebook, so we were not going to be able to keep kids from seeing it anyway.

We also talked with Mankato Supt. Sherri Allen and she said she thought it might be helpful to publish the picture with the idea that more kids, more parents, more staff would see it and maybe recognize the handwriting or some other revealing characteristic that would help apprehend the person making the threat.

We did learn later that evening that it appeared a person had been caught. We could have pulled the picture, but again, we felt, it was all over the Internet anyway. And we could lend words to the picture and a story explaining the facts of the case and how serious it is taken.

Whereas if you pull the picture, then the only place kids are getting information about it is Facebook, where a lot of kids were making fun of it, framing it as a joke, thinking it was not serious.

We always think about these kinds of decisions more than people would expect or predict. We're very aware of the power of the media and some of these things just need to be thought through a bit now and then.